Olympiacos withstands Shved blitz to down Khimki

Olympiacos Piraeus started life under new head coach David Blatt with a commanding 66-87 road victory over Khimki Moscow Region despite 34 points from Alexey Shved, including 8 three-pointers. The outcome never looked in doubt after Olympiacos recovered from a slow start to move clear in the second quarter, and a dominant finale saw the Reds claim a huge margin of success. Zach LeDay led the scoring for the visiting team on his debut, netting 14 points. Another newcomer, Sasha Vezenkov, added 13 points, while Janis Strelnieks and Georgios Printezis both scored 11. Nikola Milutinov had 9 points and 9 rebounds, and Vassilis Spanoulis combined 8 points and 7 assists. Other than Shved, Anthony Gill was Khimki’s only scorer in double figures, with 13 points.

Khimki made a fast start behind Gill, who scored his team’s first 7 points on a 12-0 run to establish a big early lead. But Olympiacos fought back with a 0-11 run of their own and the remainder of the opening quarter was closely contested as Shved came to the fore, reaching 10 points before the end of the first. But Olympiacos scored the first 9 points of the second quarter, including consecutive baskets from Vezenkov, to take command. And another flurry at the end of the quarter, capped by a wild buzzer-beating triple from Spanoulis, made it 34-44 at the interval. A three-pointer from Nigel Williams-Goss soon made it a 15-point game, and after Khimki tried to fight back a three-point play from Janis Timma finished the third with Olympiacos still in charge. A long range strike and a driving lay-up from Vezenkov maintained momentum for the visitors, and a deep three from Strelnieks effectively killed the game at 56-73 with less than eight minutes remaining. Although Shved moved past the 30-point mark with his seventh and eighth three-pointers, Kostas Papanikolaou answered in kind and Olympiacos cruised to victory the rest of the way.

Honeycutt remembered

There was an emotional moment immediately before the game, when late Khimki player Tyler Honeycutt was remembered with an impeccably observed minute’s silence. Honeycutt made 75 EuroLeague appearances for Khimki and Anadolu Efes Istanbul and tragically died in his native United States in July.

Shved ties personal best

Alexey Shved’s eight three-pointers was the joint highest of his career, and also the joint fifth highest this century. His total of 16 attempts from long-range was also the fifth highest in the competition since 2000, one behind his personal high of 17 set against Unicaja Malaga last season.

Newcomers shine

David Blatt was the highest profile new arrival at Olympiacos this summer, but a batch of new players also joined the coach and they made an instant impact on Friday: Zach LeDay and Sasha Vezenkov led the scoring, Nigel Williams-Goss combined 8 points with 5 assists, and Janis Timma also scored 8.

Spanoulis’s game-changing triple

The key moment of the game came with a few seconds remaining in the first half, when Khimki trailed by seven and had possession, hoping to make it a four or five point game at the break. But Olympiacos held firm, the ball came to Vassilis Spanoulis and he beat the buzzer – and Khimki’s resistance – with a sublime trademark triple.

Next round

Olympiacos will look to make it two wins out of two with a tough road trip to Baskonia on Wednesday, while Khimki hopes to gain its first win on the same night at Fenerbahce.

Head Coaches

BARTZOKAS, GEORGIOS

Khimki Moscow Region

"Today was a good opportunity for our players, especially for the newcomers, to learn what EuroLeague is. This is a league where you need physicality, concentration and to be ready to fight for every ball. Today we took what we deserved. We deserved to lose the game in the way we did because we lost all the battles, a lot of post-ups, loose balls, rebounds. In every battle on the court we were second to the ball. It’s all about this, which is very important at this level. Olympiacos found confidence from this. They deserved to win. This is the first game of the EuroLeague, and we need to learn how to play together. We cannot beat anybody playing one against five; we need everybody’s contribution on defense and offense. We need to understand what is the role of each one in the team, and we need to become a team. We have potential and I’m positive. But we need to learn from this game."

BLATT, DAVID

Olympiacos Piraeus

"I said before the game I truly believe having the first game on the road is a good thing for the away team – psychologically you have an advantage if you come ready to play and that’s exactly what happened tonight. If you want to be a good team, offensive rebounding and good ball movement are two of the things you have to do. We moved the ball very well tonight, the guys played for each other at both ends of the court and deservedly won the game."

“Khimki is a quality team and they will win a lot of games this year with the team and the coaching staff they have. For us to start here with a win is very positive. We had a game plan coming in and I thought our guys were pretty loyal to it.”

Players

GILL, ANTHONY

Khimki Moscow Region

"[In the second quarter] we stopped playing team basketball. We were outrebounded and they really took advantage of that. We have defense principles that we didn’t stick to. The game plan was something we didn’t do; we didn’t focus on. For us, that was not something we are used to. We have to be better. We switched a lot and it caused a lot of mismatch problems down low. We just had to do a better job and get everybody rebounding."

BOST, DEE

Khimki Moscow Region

"This is about our hustle. I mean, it was our first game early in the season and we had to play better defense. We just have to keep being better and improve. The rebounding problem is not about our big men, or me, just about everyone. This is our hustle. We lost and I’m disappointed, because the only important thing is winning. We want to win. Hopefully, we’ll continue to get better."

SPANOULIS, VASSILIS

Olympiacos Piraeus

"It’s always good to win your first game of the season. Everybody knows we are a new team with a new coach and a new philosophy, but today we showed great character, we were united and played like a fist, we made the details of the game correctly and won against a difficult team like Khimki. It’s good to play for coach Blatt, we are trying to adjust our philosophy, listen to him and do what he says."

VEZENKOV, SASHA

Olympiacos Piraeus

"It was an important game for us, every EuroLeague game in the new system is important. We limited them to 66 points and that’s the whole game when you limit such a good offensive team. We know the season is long, it’s a marathon, and this was just the first game. We want to play hard and fight for every ball and every possession."